Moments In Time: A Collection of Short Fiction (13 page)

She was his. Only his. She had to be only his, because if she weren’t, if he found out she’d been able to do as she pleased for all these years .
 . .

He’d kill her slowly.

Stumbling drunkenly to his desk, Grey opened his laptop and started clicking through the most recent finds of rogue bitches. All leads that so far had turned up nothing.

The first photo was definitely not her. The bitch was plump, freckled, with a head full of red hair.

Click
. Way too tall.

Click
. African-American.

Click
. Too old.

Click
. Too young.

Click
. Too blonde.

He growled at the next five pictures, all bitches of Asian descent.

Another blonde.

He studied the curvy blonde standing on the corner of a busy city street, stylishly dressed and talking on her cell phone.

It could be her, yet he’d said that a million times before.

Still .
 . . Squinting his eyes, he looked closer. The woman was older than Shayanne when he’d last seen her, her face less round, her curves more pronounced. Using his thumbs, Grey covered her white-blonde hair and stared. Then howled with rage.

Fucking hell.

He scanned the information provided with the photo.

Name:
Lillian Hunter

Age:
26

Location:
Brooklyn, New York

His mate was in New York City.

Furious, he dialed Dase.

It took fourteen rings for his beta to answer. “What?” Dase said, breathing heavily into the phone.

Oh. So Dase had a female with him. Didn’t that just make him feel even more homicidal.

“What was the name of the bitch you followed?”

“Grey, I’m kin—”

“NAME!”

“Uh, shit, um, Lillian . . . uh, Hunter. Lillian Hunter.”

“Don’t leave the city,” he snarled. “Lillian is Shayanne. The bitch is in New York and I’m on my way to the airport.”

Grey hung up, dressed in a flash, and was walking out his front door when an ice-cold bucket of reality washed over him, freezing him in place. Dase had tailed her, smelled her mating heat, and heard her from three blocks away with a human male.

Which meant .
 . .

“FUCK!” he roared, sending his fist through his front door.

• • •

“What made you decide to get scarification done?” Nic asked, tracing the pack marking on Shayanne’s back, a crude rendering of a wolf curved into the shape of a half moon.

Rolling onto her back, Shayanne reached up and slid her hand around Nic’s neck. “An unfortunate run-in with a wolf a very long time ago,” she said, her tone mocking as she pulled his head down to her breast.

“Ah, Lillian.” Nic groaned, sucking her nipple into his mouth. She closed her eyes, moaning.

They’d been at it for, well, she wasn’t exactly sure. They’d gotten back to her place around eight on Friday night and it was nighttime again, so that made it almost Sunday morning?

She was drenched in sweat, deliciously sore, her skin rubbed raw both inside and out. Her lips and breasts, all swollen and red from far too much attention. Bruised from head to toe. And still, she wanted more.

Maneuvering himself topside, Nic slid back inside her. “I’m pretty sure this has been the best weekend of my life,” he rasped. “And I’ve had some pretty good ones.”

Yep. It’s not very often you’ll find a girl willing to let you do whatever you want to her for three days straight, no strings attached.

God, she was so never going to be able to go back to work again. Not after the thing with the rope and the other thing with . . . Oh God, she so wasn’t going there. Nope, nope. She was officially erasing that one from her memory.

Grabbing the whiskey from her nightstand, she took a long swallow, attempting to dull the pain of Nic sliding slowly in and out of her. So much pain but, God, it felt good. She needed more .
 . . God, she just needed . . .

“Give it here,” Nic said, opening his mouth. She poured far too much in his mouth and it spilled out all over her body, not for the first time. While Nic licked the liquor off her skin, she drank the last of it.

“Damn, Lillian, I think I should propose. I mean, I knew you were hot, but I never thought—”

“Faster,” she said to interrupt him, not wanting to hear him confuse lust for love, like most human men did. This had nothing to do with the heart. It was sex. Only sex.

Grinning, he increased his pace. “See, Lillian. You’re so perfect for me.”

She snorted, wondering what he would think of her if she shifted in front of him.

Another ten minutes passed before Nic spilled his warmth inside of her, and the relief she felt was ten times greater than any orgasm. Her womb soaked up his semen like a sponge, easing her, soothing her.

“Damn,” he breathed out. “I can’t believe I’m still hard.”

He was still hard because her pheromones were keeping him in a state of arousal.

“It’s a good thing,” she whispered. “Because I need you to fuck me again.”

• • •

Side by side, Nic and Shayanne stood in the hallway, waiting for the elevator.

“We can’t walk in together,” she muttered. “Everyone will know.”

He shrugged. “Good.”

She rolled her eyes. She’d temporarily forgotten his ego. Nic was all ego. Not that he didn’t have a right to be; he was big and beautiful . . . everywhere.

“Lil,” he murmured. As she turned to him, he grabbed her waist and hauled her up against him. “They’re really going to know something’s up when I’m fucking you in my office at lunchtime,” he whispered, right before taking her mouth in a feverish kiss. A kiss that she was having trouble returning. Mating heat was over and embarrassment had set in.

“Ah, Lillian,” he whispered, pinning her up against the elevator doors, his hands on her breasts. “I can’t get enough.”

Crap. She was going to have to get a new job. And she loved her job. She enjoyed working in the community, helping people in need. It gave her a sense of purpose, one she’d never had in a pack that had always taken care of everything.

Nic still had his tongue shoved down her throat when the elevator dinged. The door opened and they both stumbled inside.

She smelled wolf.

Pushing Nic off her, she turned slowly and came face-to-face with a big, mean-looking wolf. Long blond hair pulled back into a stubby ponytail framed a darkly tanned face full of menace.

As she began backing slowly away the wolf’s nostrils flared, the skin on his big arms twitched, and when their eyes locked again, his flashed yellow. Fear froze her in place. Something was wrong. Why was he here in her building, and more importantly, why did he look like he wanted to eat her alive?

The wolf’s cell phone buzzed. Pulling it from his pants pocket, he answered, his eyes still on her. “Yeah? . . . Yeah, I found her.”

Her back went ramrod straight. Found her? Found who? Did Careen hate her so much that he’d sent a wolf to kill her? Or drag her back to pack life?

Oh God. Shayanne swallowed hard and tried to remain calm as she calculated how much time she would have from the time the elevator opened to reach the door and grab a cab and get to the airport and—

“Naw,” the wolf drawled, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” A long pause, then, “Wait. You’ll see.”

The door opened and Nic hauled her out of the elevator while she stared over her shoulder at the wolf. He flashed a grin full of fangs and made a slashing motion across his throat that nearly made her knees buckle.

On their walk to work, she looked everywhere—in every window, in every passing car, at every face, searching. Careen had to be here; hell, a quarter of her old pack was probably here. If they tried anything, she could always call the police. It wouldn’t stop them, there were wolves on the force, but it would slow them down and maybe give her enough time to disappear again.

By the time they’d arrived at Life Planning, she was so out of her mind with fear that she barely registered the leering and giggling from their coworkers. In a daze, Nic deposited her in her office with promises to come get her for lunch, then disappeared down the hall.

She had five appointments before lunch, all with pregnant teenage girls. She went through the motions, talked to them about their options, gave them referrals to clinics and ob-gyns, all while she was shriveling inside. What the hell was she going to do?

By the time lunch rolled around, she’d regained most of her equilibrium and ducked out before Nic could come accost her, or Brianna could pin her down to ask for details of her sinful weekend.

She was halfway through her Chinese chicken and broccoli when someone slid into the chair across from her. The scent of wolf hit her like a ton of bricks, but she’d had enough time to prepare herself for this. She had even planned out a speech full of lies in hopes it would spare her life. Schooling her features, she looked up into the extremely pissed-off face of .
 . .

Grey Nash.

Her mouth fell open. Careen had sent Grey Nash to kill her?

“Um, hello?” she said nervously.

“Don’t play with me,” he growled. “I know you know exactly who I am.”

Well, duh. Who could forget a face like Grey’s? He’d aged some since she’d last seen him, but the only notable differences were the tiny lines bracketing his eyes and a little gray in his closely shaven sideburns.

“Whether I know who you are or not doesn’t change the fact that you just plopped down at my table like you were invited. Which you weren’t.”

Wow. She sounded so sure of herself. Way to go, Shayanne.

“You see that Hummer out there?” He pointed across the street to where a black Hummer was parked. The wolf from the elevator was sitting in the driver’s seat, smoking, and the wolf she’d run into Friday night at Hardware was leaning against the bumper, talking on his cell phone.

“You’re going to get up,” Grey said evenly. “And you’re going to walk across the street with me and get inside like a good little bitch.”

She gaped at him. “You’re joking, right? I’m not going anywhere with you. If you’re going to kill me, you’re going to have to do it in broad daylight, where everyone can watch.”

His clenched fists hit the flimsy metal table and her food jumped a few inches. “Stand up,” he commanded.

She stared at him, feeling no impulse whatsoever to stand. Elbow on the table, chin resting in her palm, she leaned forward. “No.”

The bones under Grey’s skin started shifting, his skin rippling as he fought the urge. As it was, he’d already gone wolf-eyed and dropped fangs. His hands were clenched into fists, but she was willing to bet he had some claw action going on as well.

“Do you know what you’ve done to me?” he bit out.

Her eyebrows drew together. “Done to you? What are you talking about? And why are you here? Why didn’t Careen send someone from his own pack to kill me?”

His eyes narrowed into tiny slits. “What?” he growled.

Now she was just plain confused. “What, what?”

Unclenching his fists, Grey gripped the table in front of him and his claws sank easily through the cheap metal as if it were soft butter.

“Why would you think Careen gives a shit about my problems?” he bit out.

Oh God, she was beyond confused now. “What are you talking about?”

“I’M MATED TO YOU!” he roared, making her jump.

Everyone inside the restaurant turned to stare at them, but Shayanne couldn’t care less. She was solely focused on what Grey had just announced to her and half the city.

My God. A one-sided mating .
 . .

That meant for the past eight years Grey had been mate-less, pup-less and, oh-my-fucking God .
 . . sexless. When her teeth had sunk into his skin, her pheromones had taken root inside him, rendering him useless to any female but her. Just thinking about an alpha wolf without a sexual outlet, without the ability to procreate and continue his alpha line, made her shiver in fear. And now . . . to think that all his rage was directed at her.

“I didn’t know,” she said, feigning ambivalence when she felt the exact opposite. “You told me to go, so I went.”

“Now you know,” he bit out. “So get up and let’s go. You’re coming home with me.”

Her eyes bugged out of her head, anger at his audacity instantly replacing her fear. “No, I’m not!” she gritted out in a low voice. “It’s not my fault you forced me into a mating I didn’t want. You tackled me in the woods and had your wolfy way with me. You did this to yourself. Just go, Grey. I’m not going anywhere with you, not willingly. I have a life here, a normal human life. I’ll never go back to a pack, I’ll die first.”

“You’re going to die,” he growled. “But first you’re going to pay.”

She stared at him, incredulous. “Pay for what? The fact that you haven’t been able to have sex for almost a decade? Really, Grey, that’s what I’m going to die for? Your bruised libido?”